On the Verge

David Shafer, plastic surgeon.

After completing a prestigious yearlong fellowship at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital—working under such plastic surgery masters as Sherrell Aston, Alan Matarasso and Dan Baker—Shafer opened his own practice last summer. The boyish 35-year-old does everything from teeny tweaks (earlobe repair, injectables, chemical peels) and dental surgery (he collaborates with his office mate, periodontist Jeffrey Lemler, on gum surgeries) to full-face and body work (lifts and lipo). He has even picked up a few of his mentors’ former clients. “One lady had her face done by [famed Brazilian surgeon Ivo] Pitanguy, and then Baker, and I did it for the third time,” he says, obviously proud. “I called my friends and said, ‘It goes Pitanguy, Baker, now Shafer.’ I like the sound of that.”